News Roundup: Flex Raiding, Proving Grounds, Siege of Orgrimmar Gear

Today's news roundup is pretty heavy on gear discussions: Blizzard clarified the item levels of raid epics in Patch 5.4, talked about Siege of Orgrimmar's gear design, and talked about the different paths to PvE and PvP gearing.

Players were also keen to talk about Proving Grounds--they first discussed how they sound great for demonstrating raid capability for new players looking to find a raid, and then moved into more specific questions about the individual learning environment and overall difficulty level.

The Siege of Orgrimmar gear post by Watcher is especially worth reading, as it goes over the reasoning behind each's raid gear's strength and talks about how raiders shouldn't feel obligated to run all difficulties at once:

Siege of Orgrimmar Normal loot is ilvl 553. It is intended to be higher than than Heroic Throne of Thunder loot, which is ilvl 549 when Thunderforged and upgraded, so most players won't be disenchanting Siege normal drops in favor of their older heroic gear.

Siege of Orgrimmar Flexible mode loot is ilvl 540, between LFR and Normal levels. While some Flexible items may still be coveted because they are itemized very well, chances are you will get that item sooner in Normal or Heroic since those raid difficulties will be available before Flex opens.

It's not intended for players to run LFR, Flex, and Normal/Heroic at the same time for upgrades--the goal, after a few weeks, is to have raiders simply run the difficulty that best suits their progression. For Normal/Heroic raiders looking to get achievements done on the side, an additional lockout for Flex raiding should be handy as well.

Click the cut to read the blue posts on Siege of Orgrimmar, Flex Raiding, Proving Grounds, and gear!

Watcher

Allow me to walk through some of our thinking, from a couple of angles.

To begin with, Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot needs to feel like a meaningful upgrade to people who are currently primarily running Throne of Thunder LFR. (And yes, contrary to the occasional "but what do LFR players need gear upgrades for, anyway?" argument, it turns out that player power progression is a fairly integral part of the RPG experience for all playstyles, and not one that we consider negotiable.) Now, 5.2 Valor gear is 522, and Heroic Scenario gear is 516, and LFR-only players often have both of these in abundance. For such players, even item level 528 might not feel like a huge step up, but that was pretty much a floor on how low the Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot could go.

Next, we want Siege of Orgrimmar Normal loot to be higher than Heroic Throne of Thunder loot, for a few reasons. Heroic raiders range from bleeding-edge progression guilds who will be racing for world firsts during the first weeks of the raid, to those who will steadily work their way through the zone over the course of weeks and months. Many players in the latter group will be largely Heroic-geared when Siege of Orgrimmar comes out, but they won't necessarily be killing many Siege of Orgrimmar Heroic bosses for a while. The prospect of disenchanting nearly every single drop from Normal in favor of items obtained months ago is not a thrilling one. In addition, that would seriously complicate gear progression and its ability to smooth the difficulty curve over the course of the zone. Since Heroic Thunderforged loot is 549, something in the low 550s felt like the right place for Normal Siege of Orgrimmar loot, and we chose 553.

That brings us to Flexible mode. It's meant to fill a gap between LFR and Normal. However, Flexible mode requires a pre-formed group to enter, and its mechanics are generally closer to Normal's given the baseline assumption of more coordination and communication among a premade group. Those factors mean that Flexible should be sufficiently rewarding above and beyond LFR, or Flexible raiders may wonder why they're bothering with the additional effort for a measly few item levels. We chose 540 as roughly a midway point between LFR and Normal, and feel it appropriately rewards the added difficulty and organizational requirements as compared to LFR.

For current Heroic raiders, who are the ones most likely to feel obligated to pursue every available means of improving their character's performance, the overwhelming majority of Flexible loot will not be an upgrade compared to their current items. Many Heroic raiders are already sporting average item levels in the mid-540s due to a mix of Valor upgrades and Thunderforged loot. (And yes, while you could upgrade your Flex 540 to make it superior to a 541 or 543, you won't -- if you're a Heroic raider today, you'll be getting 553+ Normal mode loot the moment Siege of Orgrimmar opens, and upgrading that will be a priority.) Flexible mode will also be gated. Its wings will open at a faster pace than LFR's, but it will still be gated. Again, Heroic raiders will have a significant amount of Normal mode Siege of Orgrimmar loot by the time most of Flexible is unlocked.

Now, will it be worth it to run Flexible mode as a Heroic raider if you're chasing after a specific amazing trinket, or trying to get your fourth set piece to complete your bonus? Yes, it probably will. But I suspect that the same would have been true if Flexible mode dropped item level 536 loot, or 534, or nearly any reasonable value that would still be an attractive reward to a majority of the playerbase. And that should be a short-term commitment, maybe focused on the specific wing in which your item lies, until you either obtain it or its Normal-mode equivalent. In the long-run, Heroic raiders will be progressing in Heroic mode, and Normal raiders will be progressing in Normal mode.

We don't want to see you feeling obligated to run the same raid two or three times a week any more than you do, and for the most part, we feel that the itemization structure supports that goal. This is a very different structure than, say, Trial of the Crusader in patch 3.2, where clearing all available difficulties was required in order to earn required currency for purchasing set pieces, regardless of your level of progression. We hope that a few weeks into patch 5.4, the only people running Flexible mode will be the ones who genuinely want to do so, and we hope that there will be many of them. The separate lockouts do also offer benefits to many guild raiders who may want to work on achievements separately, or may for the first time be able to hop in an off-night raid with some real-life friends on a different server, without it conflicting with their main raid lockout.

I realize at the end of the day that parts of our design may simply not be ideal for your personal playstyle, and I understand that perspective, but hopefully some of this sheds some light on our thought process and the different considerations involved.

Flex Mode and Proving Grounds

Bashiok

Flex is for guilds and groups of friends to be able to raid in a slightly less demanding situation that scales to a number of players, because for those guilds not everyone shows up every raid night, while also allowing them to avoid LFR or needing to invite PUG people to fill out their group.

We think people putting together PUGs for Flex is totally cool and giving some love to PUG raids is an overall positive for the game, but it's a side-bonus. It's not really an important point to make necessarily, but I just wanted to point it out as you stated your understanding of the intent of Flex so certainly. PUG Flex is cool, just not the primary intent of the system. Somewhat ironically it's mostly to keep guilds from having to invite PUGs to their "Beer League" runs.

It's been common for PUG leaders to ask for achievement links before inviting people for a very long time as a way to test familiarity with an encounter and skill. The achievements they ask for change from raid leader to raid leader, and raid to raid. Proving Grounds certainly isn't going to make that any worse, raid leaders are still going to want some "proof", and it could be possible Proving Grounds actually makes the situation better as you may only need to show a single "class competence" achievement from 5.4 on. "I haven't done some of these fights yet, but I have Gold so I'm sure I can figure it out." That may not be acceptable for all raid leaders, but it at least creates that possibility. Right now there's no way for a raid leader to judge your competence outside of "I killed this dragon." with no context. Maybe you had your friends carry you? With Proving Grounds there is at least the context of your abilities as an individual player.

Very loosely if you can get Bronze in Proving Grounds you're good for Heroic dungeons, if you can get Silver you're good for LFR, and if you can do Gold you're going to probably be able to handle Flex/Normal - if you can get Gold you're probably not a liability to pick up for a Normal.

Anyway, it seems you're implying Proving Grounds will be bad for Flex because players will have to show ability/competence to raid leaders to join PUGs, and... I don't know that that's a bad thing, or much different than showing various raid achievements. And actually it may be better for people than raid achievements because there's context for how it was earned. If someone is a bit less skilled, they can keep at Proving Grounds and getting better, that's a benefit for them and the people they're going to group with.

If you got Gold then you know enough about your class and were able to do enough damage to successfully kill some things, and that means you're probably competent enough to dip into Flex/Normal.

The intent of Proving Grounds is not to show your epic DPS for Heroic raiding guild recruitment, it's to help players learn new specs, and understand when they have achieved some competency to be a positively contributing member to a group of players.

If you pull aggro off a tank maybe you shouldn't be grouping with them.

As far as helping teach additional skills and things, there are a wide range of boss mechanics, this is the first implementation of Proving Grounds, and we'll be evaluating how well it works out, and how and where to potentially expand it in the future.Ensuring a group is composed of competent players (with game knowledge and proper gear) that will not cause a lot of undue stress or a waste of time is not something I would consider elitist. I'd consider that good sense.

If someone isn't great at the game Proving Grounds can actually provide some goals to achieve, in a private setting, so that they can attempt to improve. Knowing that you have room to improve and being able to mark that improvement is a very positive thing for that player, and the future groups they join.And there's room for improvement of course. As I said we'll be evaluating how well this first shot goes, and when and if we may want to expand Proving Grounds in the future.

It's not going to take a brand new WoW player in quest blues and make them battle-ready to tank your Normal or Heroic raids. It will help people learn new specs and their basic mechanics (like what taunting even is) in a private setting where they can try to improve without impacting a large raid full of people.I don't suppose proving grounds will inform players of abilities in their spellbook? (I had a hard time raiding when I forgot shadowfiend existed, when I switched to solace and insanity.) There's certain abilities people don't care to use (or even know that they exist).

How much guidance will one have in the proving grounds?It's something we've discussed. It obviously can get pretty complicated, especially with every class and spec and as abilities and talents change, but it of course could offer a super in-depth training situation. There are a ton of things we could do with Proving Grounds, but we're focusing on getting it out there with its current features in 5.4.Last note, the current difficulty on the PTR isn't final. We have quite a bit of time to keep testing and tuning, and the current difficulty is probably quite a bit undertuned from where we want it. Where each medal shakes out in relative difficulty to group PvE content is likely to change, and we appreciate your continued feedback on the PTR Discussion forum after trying it out!Not intending to be snide, but if you don't like being held to the standards of others you can always create your own group and decide who can join. I think you'll find that after some difficulty there are good reasons why people have learned to set some standards and requirements, not that all of them are necessarily accurate or needed. But in creating your group and making good judgment calls on what those can be, you could create a very popular, fun, successful and regularly occurring PUG.I don't disagree that people tend to set requirements far and above what are required, but that may also be due to those people having bad experiences. If they seem unreasonable for what you believe is necessary for success there's a straight forward way to do something about it.

You're asking me why in a hypothetical situation people are asking you for Proving Ground medal achievements in addition to raid achievements? That's an assumption, first off, although probably a correct one. Well, one shows you downed a boss, which has no context for what you contributed. Maybe you had a guild carry you or went AFK? Proving Grounds show some level of ability, devoid of other factors outside of your own.

Gearing Up with PvE and PvP Gear

Taepsilum

Why not just make it all the same and balance around one taken set of gear everyone can get rather than absud amount of resilience / tier-procs / trinkets that more often than not end up making or breaking the game? Currently on the PTR PvE trinkets are absurdly overpowered and I don't think that there's a slightest way to balance that with the current way of things.

I'd also ask why -do- heroic raids give practical gear if that's supposed to be cutting edge / challenge content (aka challenge modes), having it award players with unique xmog would make for an easier time balancing than an item level cap which really doesn't solve enough.

Also make gear gaps smaller. 458 -> 476 -> 496, it's too freaking much! There's a bit of a difference between being excited for upgrades and NEEDING THEM to as much as stay competitive. It's bad design, is all.

The purpose of my thread is this - what if Resilience & PvP power were to go, with PvP gear having same stats / procs and set bonuses as PvE except with a unique, more faction-specific design, with most of the PvP stuff made baseline? (Like human racial and resilience)

The problem with that approach is that whenever there is an alternative way to get the same or similar gear, players will generally always choose the easiest/fastest route, even if that goes against their own personal enjoyment of the game; obviously that is something we would like to avoid and should be able to avoid with good design.

If you’re a serious raider and you dislike doing PvP, you’ll probably feel left behind if the rest of your guildmates go into arena to complement their PvE gear, and vice versa in case you’re into PvP and dislike PvE.

I think these two groups are different enough to warrant a gear distinction, I believe that is good design. Can the current system be improved? Certainly, there are many things that are far from ideal, we’ve tried quite a lot of new ideas for PvP in MoP, some of those ideas were quite radical and we know that there’s always some risk attached to anything that’s drastically different and new. We made some mistakes, and we learned a lot from them, we’ve reverted some changes and we’ve tried a few new approaches and as time goes on the system will keep on maturing.

It’s also important to remember that new expansions will always give us much more leeway when it comes to design shifts. It’s very important to keep a certain level of consistency during the course of an expansion, even when you have a great new idea, if that idea is too radical, sometimes it will be better to wait for a new expansion before deploying it in order to avoid alienating and confusing the players. There are certainly some things that we would do differently if MoP were to launch today. But frankly, I think MoP had (and will have) some of the most drastic changes I’ve seen during the course of any expansion, and 5.4 is really really packed! I must say I’m quite excited and curious to see how 5.4 will play out on live and see how players will take some of the new features.Fixing ilvls is super simple, fixing everything that depends on those ilvls however is not. That’s where the complexity begins, the whole game is like an intrinsic vast web of connections, every change that you apply will send out a wave of repercussions that we have to “fix” somehow. Some of these will be easy, others hard, and some we won’t even be expecting.Yes, we will nerf all new 5.4 PvE trinkets and also disable PvE set bonuses for PvP.

We do understand and share your concerns about PvE trinkets being too good in PvP, they’re a very particular type of item, and are supposed to be very powerful in PvE. That concept is basically the root of all these issues, but we like that they are this powerful as it makes them particularly exciting and coveted items for PvE.We have made the conversion ratio of justice-to-honor = 3:2 but if this happens consistently to most players then it’s not ideal; do you find that earning honor through dungeons is still faster than doing Bgs even when you’re in a good semi-fixed group?

This is one of those cases where PvP and PvE differ a lot, you know what to expect from a 5man dungeon, and you know on average how long it will take, especially when you have a friend or two speeding things up with top gear. When doing Bgs however, you never really know what you’re going to get, even with a semi-fixed group; the other team might put up a good fight and the game will last longer, or you might even lose; but in the end, isn’t that what PvP is all about, enjoying a good fight?I mean, while the design concept that I talked about is still what we aim for, this might be one of those situations where on average, players still get more points through Bgs even if that isn’t true for everyone (example: if you have friends willing to go with you into 5mans but not into PvP), but we can look into the ratio it if the difference reveals to be significant.

On the other hand, I’d like to point out that currently, are exclusive to PvP and Valor Points to PvE, Justice and Honor are a sort of catch-up currencies, and while these latter are still important and should still respect some design boundaries, Conquest and Valor are the currencies where those boundaries have to be applied much more strictly and rigorously. So for example, in case we ever allow Valor-to-Conquest again like we did in Cata or possibly even the opposite (Uh oh! ;), we would need to be very careful with the conversion ratio and maybe even impose a weekly cap. (we have no plans to do this atm, it’s just an example to better illustrate this argument)

Comments

Comment by Strifebearer

on 2013-07-22T13:36:25-05:00

I agree with 90% of this... the few things I don't are too winded to really elaborate on... But people will still complain... people will find loopholes in the system... That's how it works... you can't please everyone... and there's always going to be that "cheap move" that nobody anticipates. I look forward to WoW's future despite this and will stick around until I find something else to distract me.

Comment by Cruznick

on 2013-07-22T16:12:38-05:00

I have 2 questios to all this the first one is that if there will be a valor reset/conversion when this patch hits the servers and which ilvl we should have to run normal mode of siege of orgrimmar on the idea that not every one has heroic gear from Tot

Comment by CalaelenDT

on 2013-07-22T16:45:30-05:00

Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot is ilvl 528. It is intended to feel like a meaningful upgrade over gear from the last tier, and there's already ilvl 522 Valor gear and ilvl 516 Heroic Scenario gear which many LFR players have equipped.

They want LFR loot to be a meaningful upgrade, yet they put it at 528 iLevel, making it only 6 iLevels better than current tier Valor/World Boss gear. That's less iLevels than what you get for upgrading an item, and is hardly a meaningful upgrade IMO.

I just run LFR, world bosses and Heroic Scenarios, and I'm sitting at iLevel 529 currently with all my gear upgraded.

While the jump between the two LFR versions (502 and 528) is big, most people are sitting in near full 522 gear from Valor/World Bosses, which is the main problem. Even non-raiders are equipped for a big part with Normal ToT level gear, yet with 5.4 not adding new Valor gear, the gear increase falls flat from previous raiding patches.

Depending on whether or not Item Upgrades will remain in 5.4, SoO LFR gear might actually not be an upgrade at all over upgraded Valor gear, with it sitting at 530 iLevel.

Comment by rinkworks

on 2013-07-23T07:29:11-05:00

Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot is ilvl 528. It is intended to feel like a meaningful upgrade over gear from the last tier, and there's already ilvl 522 Valor gear and ilvl 516 Heroic Scenario gear which many LFR players have equipped.

They want LFR loot to be a meaningful upgrade, yet they put it at 528 iLevel, making it only 6 iLevels better than current tier Valor/World Boss gear. That's less iLevels than what you get for upgrading an item, and is hardly a meaningful upgrade IMO.

I agree, but on the other hand it's how 5.2 was. In 5.0 and 5.1, LFR loot went up to, what, 483 or so? But you could get 496 valor gear and world boss drops. So you could be in mostly 496s by the time 5.2 hit, at which point the LFR gear was 502, just 6 ilvls higher.

Now LFR people are in a few 502s but mostly 516 scenario gear and 522 valor gear. In 5.4, we'll get that same 6-ilvl boost that 5.2 gave us. However, there is a new world boss that could well drop better, and there are references to being able to get 535 gear via some Kor'kron-like mechanic. So the reality may be that LFR folks mostly do better than the LFR gear, just as they have been able to do all along.

Comment by neonjohn

on 2013-07-23T07:35:11-05:00

I think 528 is a good number for LFR. Remember, they are going under the assumption that players will upgrade their gear, and so current LFR/HS/Rep gear upgrades to only 530 on the top end rep gear, whereas the new LFR will upgrade to 536. That's a decent upgrade. The issue is, they have created so many levels of raiding to accommodate casuals that they have to manage the gear spread in a smart way.

I'm not against additional raid levels per se, but they do put quite a bit of effort into making it easier for people who can't invest time into the game to get gear. I don't think it takes an elite player to do Normal or Heroic raiding. I've seen vids of ToT Heroic boss kills, 10 Man, and the bottom end dps were doing =/<100k DPS, and the rest of the group definately wasn't doing 250k+. I think if people just take the time and really put an effort into honing their skills (proving grounds, anyone?), more people can do Normal/Heroic raiding. If you don't have time to do that, you probably are playing the wrong game. RPGs are supposed to take time to get the best stuff. We hear all the time of people saying things like "I'm in med school and can only play 2 hours a week and since I'm paying a subscription, I should get stuff". Blizzard has heard these cries and nerf the game constantly to accommodate those players.

Of course, raiding is not a requirement. If you just want to do dailies and maybe do some crafting, play the AH, etc. that's great. There are plenty of other things to do in the game. Just remember, Flex/LFR were created to make raids accessible to more people, while maintaining normal and Heroic raiding, so these higher raid levels have to keep a significant gear advantage over Flex/LFR, and they also had to make Flex/LFR gear an upgrade to those players...I think they've done pretty well.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013-07-23T08:06:09-05:00

Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot is ilvl 528. It is intended to feel like a meaningful upgrade over gear from the last tier, and there's already ilvl 522 Valor gear and ilvl 516 Heroic Scenario gear which many LFR players have equipped.

They want LFR loot to be a meaningful upgrade, yet they put it at 528 iLevel, making it only 6 iLevels better than current tier Valor/World Boss gear. That's less iLevels than what you get for upgrading an item, and is hardly a meaningful upgrade IMO.

I just run LFR, world bosses and Heroic Scenarios, and I'm sitting at iLevel 529 currently with all my gear upgraded.

While the jump between the two LFR versions (502 and 528) is big, most people are sitting in near full 522 gear from Valor/World Bosses, which is the main problem. Even non-raiders are equipped for a big part with Normal ToT level gear, yet with 5.4 not adding new Valor gear, the gear increase falls flat from previous raiding patches.

Depending on whether or not Item Upgrades will remain in 5.4, SoO LFR gear might actually not be an upgrade at all over upgraded Valor gear, with it sitting at 530 iLevel.

One thing you are forgetting is tier bonuses. Yeah, you have a lot of 522 SPA gear, but not only will it upgrade to 528, you will also get set bonuses that your SPA gear doesn´t have. I am in the same boat as you though, most of the SoO LFR stuff will be minor upgrades... but I also think the devs realized that any bump in LFR gear would mean bumps in every other difficult level, so they used the lowest number they could for LFR

I also think the devs hope that players like you and I, that basically ´maxed´ out LFR and SPA will be prime candidates for trying some pug flex raids. We are really the upper end of the LFR people, not much to assume that we would be the ones pushing to try the next level. I know with OpenRaid, it should be fairly easy to find a group to do Flex even if you can´t be there every week.

Also, I believe there will be 535 gear available from the Timeless Isle and also there are new world bosses, so basically the LFR 528 gear will be the bottom of our gear similar to the way 502 LFR gear was our worst pieces in 5.3

Comment by elionor

on 2013-07-23T09:31:54-05:00

is there going to be a way for non raiders to gear up? like we have heroic scenarios now?

Comment by CalaelenDT

on 2013-07-23T10:07:07-05:00

@rinkworks:

Siege of Orgrimmar LFR loot is ilvl 528. It is intended to feel like a meaningful upgrade over gear from the last tier, and there's already ilvl 522 Valor gear and ilvl 516 Heroic Scenario gear which many LFR players have equipped.

They want LFR loot to be a meaningful upgrade, yet they put it at 528 iLevel, making it only 6 iLevels better than current tier Valor/World Boss gear. That's less iLevels than what you get for upgrading an item, and is hardly a meaningful upgrade IMO.

I agree, but on the other hand it's how 5.2 was. In 5.0 and 5.1, LFR loot went up to, what, 483 or so? But you could get 496 valor gear and world boss drops. So you could be in mostly 496s by the time 5.2 hit, at which point the LFR gear was 502, just 6 ilvls higher.

Now LFR people are in a few 502s but mostly 516 scenario gear and 522 valor gear. In 5.4, we'll get that same 6-ilvl boost that 5.2 gave us. However, there is a new world boss that could well drop better, and there are references to being able to get 535 gear via some Kor'kron-like mechanic. So the reality may be that LFR folks mostly do better than the LFR gear, just as they have been able to do all along.

I started midway through 5.0, so I never got to the point where I was fully geared in Valor and LFR gear prior to 5.2, so I didn't realize that it was only a 6 iLevel upgrade from 5.1 Valor gear to 5.2 LFR gear.

One thing you are forgetting is tier bonuses. Yeah, you have a lot of 522 SPA gear, but not only will it upgrade to 528, you will also get set bonuses that your SPA gear doesn´t have. I am in the same boat as you though, most of the SoO LFR stuff will be minor upgrades... but I also think the devs realized that any bump in LFR gear would mean bumps in every other difficult level, so they used the lowest number they could for LFR

I also think the devs hope that players like you and I, that basically ´maxed´ out LFR and SPA will be prime candidates for trying some pug flex raids. We are really the upper end of the LFR people, not much to assume that we would be the ones pushing to try the next level. I know with OpenRaid, it should be fairly easy to find a group to do Flex even if you can´t be there every week.

Also, I believe there will be 535 gear available from the Timeless Isle and also there are new world bosses, so basically the LFR 528 gear will be the bottom of our gear similar to the way 502 LFR gear was our worst pieces in 5.3

I'm currently wearing my 4 piece Tier set as well, with two 530s from Nalak, and 2 510s from LFR, so even for Tier gear the jump won't be that big.

I totally understand why they put it at 528 iLevel, and that having to work with 4 different raid levels is a royal pain, but I still think calling 6 iLevels a meaningful upgrade is nonsense.

If there's indeed going to be higher level gear than the 528's from LFR available through the Isle or from new Scenarios or something than it won't be that bad. The main reason that it's such a poor jump in power is because there's no new Valor gear to match the current gear we are wearing.

I'll definitely give Flex raiding a go, even though the fact that it follows the LFR loot system is a big turn off from having to go through the trouble of putting a raid together that requires at least some form of communication, without any guaranteed rewards.

Comment by John81

on 2013-07-23T10:55:06-05:00

Agree with whats being said above, on the face of it 502 to 528 is a good jump. However the lack of Valor gear/HC scenario gear which currently occupies everything other than tier pieces will make the jump minimal for LFR players.

I doubt people will jump into flex from lfr, think its more likely normal players may use that as a means of getting around numbers in guild etc.

Flex has screwed lfr really because if it wasn't there then lfr could be higher, maybe 538.

Think they need to bump LFR up further or bring back valor vendors for 5.4 otherwise it wont have much longevity to the casual player. The other alternative is to amend upgrades, either let players upgrade an item more than twice, say 4 times. Or make the upgrades greater. Without Valor gear there needs to be somewhere to spend the valor so i think increasing the number of upgrades is a good way to go.

Comment by Mantrhax

on 2013-07-23T11:23:40-05:00

ilv 528 must be a joke or its just another mistake from blizz... as usual.

where you see meaningful you must read negligible

Comment by Abcat

on 2013-07-23T12:15:46-05:00

ilv 528 must be a joke or its just another mistake from blizz... as usual.

where you see meaningful you must read negligible

It is just part of the system to keep us working to get more gear. Instead of large jumps you got small jumps with small increases in stats. Would folks care about the dungeons or LFR in the middle (530 gear) if there was 555 gear in another LFR they could get into? For sure I would be doing the 555 LFR if I could get in and doing the other stuff later just to see the fights.

But this system is no different than any game you might play. Any game as you level up will give you gear that is just slightly better. You won't get Excalibur at level 2 but at level 50. A new piece of gear needs enchants, gems and such to equip it properly.

Comment by Shadowheart10

on 2013-07-23T12:33:21-05:00

In reality, this is no different than what Blizzard has been doing all along, and all people are getting upset about is the blue post's choice of words.

/heavysigh

Comment by John81

on 2013-07-23T12:54:05-05:00

In reality, this is no different than what Blizzard has been doing all along, and all people are getting upset about is the blue post's choice of words.

/heavysigh

The difference is the lack of valor gear. People who lfr regularly have maybe 8 or 9 pieces of 522 gear already, and thats probably upgraded to 530. Without Valor gear matching T16 Normal then those players will only get maybe a 6-10 lvl increase. Tier 14 lfr players could be on about 489, T15 they can get to 524 or higher, thats a 35 point buff. For T16 to only offer 10 or 12 is not good enough.

The problem is two fold, 1 squeezing in flex (otherwise lfr could be 540) and no valor gear.

Solution is one of the following; up ilvl on LFR; make higher lvl gear available either through valor or another means (multiple pieces not just 1 or 2); increase how much each item can be upgraded.

Comment by rinkworks

on 2013-07-24T09:33:41-05:00

In reality, this is no different than what Blizzard has been doing all along, and all people are getting upset about is the blue post's choice of words.

/heavysigh

The difference is the lack of valor gear.

In place of Valor gear, we can get 535 gear, Kor'kron style, by collecting stuff on the Timeless Isle. Isn't that basically equivalent?

The other thing is, Shado-Pan Assault valor gear didn't cover every slot, so there are several items that will go from 502 to 528 in one big 26-ilvl jump (both weapons, head, feet, one of the rings, one of the trinkets). Additionally, if anybody opted for tier gear over the SPA gear, that'll jump 26-ilvls as well.

Bottom line, LFR gear is jumping up by 26 ilvls, and the outside-of-instance gear is jumping up by 13 ilvls, and we don't even know what the new world boss is going to drop yet -- I'm guessing that's even higher than 535. Plenty of upgrading opportunities.

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